The "Copyright Alert System" – an elaborate combination of surveillance, warnings, punishments, and "education" directed at customers of most major U.S. Internet service providers – is poised to launch in the next few weeks, as has been widely reported. The problems with it are legion.Big media companies are launching a massive peer-to-peer surveillance scheme to snoop on subscribers. Based on the results of that snooping, ISPs will be serving as Hollywood’s private enforcement arm, without the checks and balances public enforcement requires. Once a subscriber is accused, she must prove her innocence, without many of the legal defenses she’d have in a courtroom.

The damages provisions of copyright law - up to $150,000 per infringed work without any proof of harm - are crazy. And according to the federal appeals court in Minnesota, the Constitution does not restore sanity. This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the original jury verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset: a $222,000 penalty for sharing 24 songs on a peer-to-peer network. That's $9,250 per song (for songs that sell for about a dollar at retail). Frighteningly, the court suggested that statutory damages awarded by a judge or jury don't need to have ANY connection to the harm actually suffered by a copyright owner.

Today’s sad news of the passing of Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boy’s MCA, caused us to take a moment to reflect on the impact that the Beastie Boys, and their seminal record Paul’s Boutique, had on remix culture.

On Friday, EFF went to court to argue that innocent Megaupload customers like Kyle Goodwin should be able to get their lost files back. We were particularly concerned because the government, which had originally seized the files and still apparently holds all of Megaupload's financial assets, had argued that it had no obligation to make sure the files of innocent Megaupload users were returned and, in fact, believed that they could be destroyed.

Does the government have a responsibility to protect innocent third parties from collateral damage when it seizes their property in the course of prosecuting alleged copyright infringement? That is the question a federal district court will consider next week in the latest skirmish in the legal battle between the U.S. government and Megaupload.